Beyond the Numbers: Creating a Truly Diverse Organization

Delving into the heart of diversity, we explore the essence of a truly inclusive organization. It's not just about the numbers, but the richness of perspectives, experiences, and ideas that foster innovation and growth. Let's journey beyond the statistics.

The relationship between diversity and inclusion is circular and interdependent

Diversity without inclusion can create a toxic culture, inclusion without diversity runs the risk of creating a stagnant and unimaginative organization

• When organizations make tokenistic or symbolic efforts to give the appearance of inclusiveness, employees (and candidates) from marginalized or underrepresented groups often perceive those efforts as performative and insincere

If an employee doesn’t believe that DE&I gestures are sincere, there’s likely to be backlash

If you say you value diversity but don’t have a diverse workforce, you may be perceived as being insincere

• Do more than pay lip service to your commitment to valuing diversity
• Focus on “psychographics” – beliefs, values, aspirations and other psychological criteria

Diversify Your Recruitment Strategy

Find out how employees feel about the diversity practices currently in place

• The best predictor of success is employee sense of belonging
• Look closely at a company’s current culture to see whether it’s inclusive or not
• Review existing recruitment strategies to determine what, if anything, they should be doing differently

In her own professional life, Peer often found herself boxed in by the labels of Asian-American and Korean-American

True diversity focuses on how we can all thrive together in difference

• Companies have to step back and ask, ‘Are we connecting people?’ That should be the litmus test of any diversity strategy.

Ellis encourages recruiters and hiring managers to take a systemic approach to diversity-conscious recruitment and hiring to eliminate any unconscious biases

Create diverse interview panels

• Identify the most effective recruiters for different markers of diversity
• Use structured and unstructured interviews with candidates to manage bias among recruitment team members
• Use targeted recruitment strategies based on data related to best practices for affinity groups
• Provide job candidates with the position’s salary range and avoid asking about salary history
• Have candidates perform a sample work test so you can test the quality of the candidate’s work versus subconsciously judging them based on their traits
• Write job descriptions that inspire and are balanced, inclusive, and fair
• Take advantage of tools and services that are designed to reduce systemic bias

Factors to Consider

Demographic factors

Diagnosing the Problem

When an employee has a negative reaction, it’s important to understand their perspective to determine how much is individual or personal to that employee and determine whether there are larger cultural or systemic issues

• Carey recommends that HR professionals use employee experience or engagement surveys to generate metrics that organizations can use to measure inclusion

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